Explain using your own words why do we need to place servers ✓ Solved

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Q1. Explain using your own words why do we need to place servers geographically close to people who will use these servers?

Q2. Briefly compare how “Flow Control” is different than “Congestion Control” in TCP.

Q3. Calculate the bandwidth of a TCP connection (in bits per second) given that the congestion window size is 20 packets, where each packet is 20 bytes. The round-trip time (RTT) is equal to 20ms. (Hint: a byte is 8 bits).

Q4. TCP can be secured with SSL to encrypt the connection. Does SSL operate at the transport layer (same as TCP) or the application layer? Explain what needs to be done to provide such functionality.

Q5. True or false? Correct the false answers a. A user requests a Web page that consists of some text and three images. For this page, the client will send one request message and receive four response messages. (T / F) b. With nonpersistent connections between client browser and web server, it is possible for a single TCP segment to carry two distinct HTTP request messages. (T / F) c. The Date: header in the HTTP response message indicates when the object in the response was last modified. (T / F) d. TCP congestion control ensures that the sender does not overwhelm the receiver with data it cannot handle (T / F) e. TCP uses a two-way handshake to create a new connection. (T / F)

Q6. Consider a TCP connection between Host A and Host B. Suppose that the TCP segments traveling from Host A to Host B have source port number “x” and destination port number “y”. What are the source and destination port numbers for the segments traveling from Host B to Host A?

Q7. Is it possible for an application to use reliable data transfer when the application runs over UDP? If so, how?

Q8. Suppose a process in Host C has a UDP socket with port number 7889. Suppose both Host A and Host B each sends a UDP segment to Host C with destination port number 7889. Will both segments be directed to the same socket at Host C? If so, how will the process at Host C know that these two segments originated from two different hosts?

Q9. Consider the figure below. What are the source and destination port values in the segments flowing from the server back to the clients’ processes (from the server back to A and B)? What are the IP addresses in the network-layer datagrams carrying the transport-layer segments to each of the hosts?

Bonus: a. Do routers have IP addresses? If so, how many? b. What is the 32-bit binary equivalent of the IP address 131.200.3.26?

Paper For Above Instructions

Understanding the geographical placement of servers is crucial for enhancing user experience and minimizing latency. When servers are located close to users, the round-trip time (RTT) for data requests dramatically decreases, which leads to faster load times for websites and services (Huang et al., 2016). Moreover, this proximity helps in efficient bandwidth utilization and reduces the likelihood of packet loss, which is important for applications requiring timely data delivery, such as streaming services and online gaming (Kumar et al., 2019). Geographic proximity also aids in meeting data sovereignty regulations where data must be stored and processed within specific regions (Liu et al., 2020).

Flow control and congestion control are two essential mechanisms in Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) that serve different purposes. Flow control ensures that a sender does not overwhelm a receiver with data, regulating the amount of data that can be sent before receiving an acknowledgment (RFC 793). On the other hand, congestion control manages network traffic to prevent overload and minimize the rate of data packet loss in the pathways (Allman et al., 1999). Effectively, while flow control is concerned with the receiver's capacity, congestion control addresses overall network conditions.

To calculate the bandwidth of a TCP connection, we can use the formula: bandwidth = (congestion window size packet size) / RTT. Given a congestion window size of 20 packets and a packet size of 20 bytes, we first convert byte size to bits (20 bytes = 160 bits) and convert RTT from milliseconds to seconds (20 ms = 0.02 seconds). Thus, the calculation becomes: bandwidth = (20 packets 160 bits) / 0.02 seconds = 160,000 bits per second.

SSL operates at the transport layer, specifically in a manner analogous to TCP by wrapping its protocol around it. To implement SSL, a negotiation phase occurs where the server and client establish a secure session by agreeing upon encryption methods and exchanging session keys (Rescorla, 2001). This ensures that the transmitted data remains confidential and intact during transmission.

Regarding the true or false questions:

a. True. A web page typically involves multiple resources, and each resource is generally fetched through separate HTTP responses.

b. False. Nonpersistent connections allow only one request-response pair per connection, meaning a single TCP segment cannot carry two distinct messages.

c. False. The Date: header indicates when the response was sent, not when the object was last modified; that would typically be indicated by the Last-Modified header.

d. True. TCP implements congestion control to regulate data flow and ensure no node in the network becomes overwhelmed.

e. False. TCP uses a three-way handshake to establish a connection, not a two-way handshake.

In a TCP connection between Host A and Host B, the source port number from Host A becomes the destination port on Host B, and vice versa; thus, if Host A uses source port x and sends to y, then Host B's response will have source port y and destination port x.

It is feasible for applications to achieve reliable data transfer over UDP by implementing application-level protocols that ensure data integrity and reliable delivery. Protocols like Reliable User Datagram Protocol (RUDP) and others manage acknowledgments, retransmissions, and data sequencing to simulate TCP-like behavior over UDP (Zhang & Wang, 2020).

When two different hosts send UDP segments to the same port number on Host C, both segments will indeed direct to the same socket. Host C can differentiate between the segments by inspecting the source IP addresses and port numbers contained within each UDP header, allowing it to identify the originating hosts appropriately.

In the segments returning from the server to clients A and B, the source port values will match the server’s port, while the destination port will correspond to the source ports that clients used while sending requests. The IP addresses will be those of the server, responding to each client’s IP address—indicative of the distinct connections established.

As for routers, they indeed possess IP addresses—one per physical or logical interface they hold. In typical scenarios, each interface needs a unique address to facilitate packet routing across different networks (Cao et al., 2018).

The 32-bit binary equivalent of the IP address 131.200.3.26 can be calculated as follows: 131 = 10000011, 200 = 11001000, 3 = 00000011, and 26 = 00011010. Thus, the full binary representation will appear as 10000011.11001000.00000011.00011010.

References

  • Allman, M., Paxson, V., & Stevens, W. (1999). TCP congestion control. RFC 2581.
  • Cao, S., Zhang, Y., & Gupta, V. (2018). A survey on the Internet of Things: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 118, 33-47.
  • Huang, J., Li, Z., & Wang, Y. (2016). A survey on the impact of geographical location on server performance. IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, 13(2), 212-226.
  • Kumar, A., & Singh, R. (2019). A survey on network congestion control: Approaches and challenges. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 144, 102-117.
  • Liu, H., Li, Y., & Li, Z. (2020). Geographic proximity and its influence on data transfer speed in distributed systems. Future Generation Computer Systems, 113, 58-69.
  • Rescorla, E. (2001). SSL and TLS: Designing and building secure systems. Addison-Wesley.
  • Zhang, H., & Wang, Z. (2020). Reliable data transfer in applications. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 7(10), 9196-9207.

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